add jalapeno, bell peppers, sage, thyme and turkey (tofu) saute until peppers are fragrant and soft, giving a good stir every minute or two. the goal here is to get a light coat of brown on as many veggies as possible. however, your pot might be a bit crowded, so don't worry if it doesn't work out

toss in all the tomatoes and reduce heat to medium low, cover and let cook until tomatoes are thoroughly broken down, stirring occasionally. this will probably take around an hour. here's where your laziness in not peeling or seeding pays off- the confetti of colorful skins adds visual interest and texture to the soup

once the tomatoes have broken down into an easy liquid, stir in your broth and bring back to a simmer, let simmer another 10-15 minutes covered

thoroughly mix your crumbled feta, egg noodles and beaten egg in to the soup. cover and set a kitchen timer for 5 minutes

when the alarm goes off stir in basil and 1/2 the chopped spinach, leave uncovered and set alarm for another 5 minutes

when the alarm goes off again, remove your soup from the heat and fold in the remaining spinach. keep soup covered, away from heat until it's cool enough to dish up

if you can find one, serve with a green (or black) olive baguette- the combination of sweet, salty, spicy soup and sour bread is heavenly.

Thank god the Trader Joe's in Davis opened; I didn't really miss not having one around for the last eight years, but their frozen dinners have been a savior to the overly sleepy cook with suddenly, horrifyingly, bland taste-buds.

Last night I had wilted spinach with 2% milk poured over it for dinner. Really.

Three weeks in Asia was truly great, but having to be careful about every bite I ate, and extra-vigilant against food poisoning left me feeling more than a hair on the wrong side of boring.

For a naturally shy girl, not going out for drinks with colleagues, or having Perrier with a twist of lime as my "fun" beverage, was a new experience.

2011-09-07

Other life events have kept me relatively uninspired in the kitchen (can anyone say spruced-up Trader Joe's frozen foods?) but those will get their fair address when I'm back from these three weeks in Asia.

In the meantime I'll try to update from the road as time and firewalls permit!

We also ventured to the 19th annual Pacific Rim Street Festival in Old Sac Sunday, where we had some unfortunately mediocre Asian street food (great Lumpia though) saw some Taiko, Hawaiian dancing, and Tai Chi.

Now it's time to move my clothes from one suitcase to another and enjoy some down-time together.

2011-04-28

Does anyone out there in the internets have a good recipe for Sweet & Sour Sauce from scratch; like using fresh tomatoes and pineapples, rather than cans of tomato (or god forbid, ketchup) and pineapple?

This is something I'll be experimenting with once tomatoes come in season.

2011-04-23

I'm a big fan any society/ culture that considers the aesthetics of the mundane.

Everywhere I went in Brazil -except Brasilia, which is a 60's modernist fantasy- there were fantastic mosaic sidewalks. It's called Portuguese Pavement and found, obviously in Portugal, as well as the prior colonies.

Birds

Flowers

Ribbon Waves (note that anyone with money had security)

Intersecting designs

Famous Copacabana waves

Hearsay has it the white tiles represent European immigrants, the black tiles represent Africans brought as slaves, and the red tiles represent the native population; in sidewalks and life it looks like the natives got screwed in representation.

2011-04-19

These delicious cheesy doughy balls were everywhere in Brazil- every meal included them and the airports smelled of them.Even more than the endless amounts of charred cow, Pão de Queijo will always remind me of my first trip to Brazil; I knew they'd be the first thing I tried making after getting home (and almost everything else was just seared meat anyways...)

Pão de Queijo

500 grams- about 3.5-4 cups Tapioca flour

2 cups of milk

1 cup of cooking oil

1 Tbsp salt

3-4 eggs

2 cups grated/crumbled cheeses

few pinches extra salt

Measure Tapioca flour into a heat-proof, large (it will hold everything) bowl

Boil milk, oil and salt together

Pour milk/oil mixture into the tapioca flour (you may not need all the liquid) and stir until it becomes a big pasty mess, similar to choux

Beat in the 3rd egg, if it's looking too watery omit the 4th egg, if not, beat it in too, stir in the remaining cheese

You should now have a thick, smooth dough

Spoon heaping spoonfuls of dough onto lined cookie sheets, keeping in mind that Pão de Queijo will grow close to 25%

Sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt and bake at 360 degrees for 15-20 minutes

Pão de Queijo is best served hot fresh from the oven, but good reheated too.

The recipe I've posted is slightly tweaked from the one I used- my batter was a bit too liquid* and my dough-balls flattened too much as a result, see above; if anyone tries making these let me know how Pão de Queijo turns out for you!

*UPDATE- on a second making it turns out mine was liquidy just because the milk/oil mixture cooled too much before I added it, pour it into the flour while still boiling and you'll be fine.

2011-04-14

I promise I'll get to the Brazilian recipes soon, but for now it's last night's dinner.

I'd had some kimchi fermenting in the fridge for, oh, 5+ months, and decides it was time to clear up space and use it up. Since kimchi is pretty potent stuff I needed a recipe that would survive adding 3-4 cups of kimchi, which isn't exactly something you can top a delicate salad with. A restaurant near us has kimchi soup on the menu, and I decided to try a variation on the idea.

Warning: there is nothing at all, in any way authentic about this soup, it came straight from my palate-brain connection.

Kimchi Noodle Soup, serves 2-4 depending on hunger levels.

For the soup:

1 spring onion, thinly sliced

1 Tbsp sesame oil

3-4 cups kimchi

4 cups broth

Udon noodles for 2

2 eggs beaten with some water

Black pepper to taste

In large stock pot heat sesame oil, then saute onion until fragrant, but still green

Add kimchi and broth to pot ( I had chicken on hand, but imagine fish, mushroom or a mild vegetable broth would all be good, and easily adjustable to any dietary restrictions), season with black pepper and turn off heat

Let the flavors marinate at room temperature while you make your own noodles, or for 1/2 hour or so to mellow out the kimchi

Turn stove-top to high heat and bring soup to a rapid boil

Add noodles and reduce heat slightly

When noodles are almost done add egg mixture to soup and cook one minute

Unfortunately, we ate all this up before I took a picture, but it was good.

If you're feeling ambitious, or like planning ahead for several months, here are the complete steps.

For kimchi:

You could use store-bought kimchi, but the stuff made at home has more personality. I know there are many many variations on kimchi, since I'm allergic to shrimps I leave them out, and make it as follows.

In large, seal-able glass or ceramic bowl combine:

white vinegar

rice wine vinegar

lots of chopped garlic

1 Tbsp + red pepper flakes

fish sauce

thinly sliced Napa / green cabbage, as for a slaw

mung bean sprouts

You'll want to taste the sauce as you go, making sure it's not too vinegary, is very spicy, and has plenty of fish sauce. You don't need to cover the cabbage and sprouts completely as they'll wilt over time, and a thorough tossing once in a while ensures even flavoring/ fermentation. I keep the bowl in the back of the fridge, using bits of the kimchi over time, and adding leftover sprouts and bits of cabbage from other recipes. I'm not sure of the real use-by timeline on this as I'm partial to pickled and fermented food anyways, but I think it lasts a long time.

For noodles:

I also attempted to make my own noodles for this soup, what I made turned out pretty good for a first try, but you might just want to stick with store-bought udon or rice noodles.

1 cup tapioca flour

.5 cup AP wheat flour

water egg mixture as needed

in large bowl combine tapioca and wheat flours, making a well in the middle

start moistening the flours with water, no more that a 1/4 cup to begin with; be warned that tapioca flour is just like cornstarch- it melts when you're not touching it and crumbles when you apply any force

once you have a slightly sticky but coherent dough ball, knead the hell out of it

let dough rest a while

using AP flour as needed to keep dough from sticking, roll sections of dough out to as close to 1/8 an inch think as you can get- in full disclosure I always fail at that part, and am lucking for a chunky 1/5 inch thick noodle.

let noodles rest/dry for at least an hour before using.

If unlike me you're not pulling a recipe out of your back-side, I suggest using that instead.

2011-02-23

It's just hard to spend that many more hours at the computer. I guess you could say I'm suffering from a motivation problem. Even worse, most of my winter recipes are now out-of-season; I was just bemoaning the end of Kale.

We usually fancy it up for Christmas, but this (technically last) year I didn't have a damn thing planned for our usual romantic feast. Lucky for me, there's almost nothing seasonal in the recipe, so I can post it 2+ months after the fact, and not feel like anyone reading this would need to wait a year to try out the recipe.

Really I was just craving clams again (which always seem like a "fancy" special food to me) when I saw chorizo at the store and thought "mmm spicy" and was inspired. I googled around for some recipes using both and found the two below. I had a suspicion it'd be a bit toomuch flavor, but turned out fantastic!

Though it's not a meal worthy of the tittle "feast" the idea seemed like it needed sharing, so we invited a friend over for some pre-Christmas wine & wii; a good time was had by all.

1 lb fresh linguine (I used two-color because that's what the store had, but would prefer normal)

1 lb little neck clams, fresh in shells

4.5 oz chorizo, about 1 1/2 sausages

5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/8 tsp saffron threads

dry white wine

1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion

olive oil

chicken broth

pinch red pepper flakes

juice of 1/2 - 1 lemon

handful roughly chopped parsley

Parmesan for garnish

in heavy bottomed sauce pan saute chorizo in just a splash of olive oil until it releases its fat

add in garlic, onion and red pepper flakes

when onion is soft and fragrant add a half cup of white wine or broth, use it to scrape up any bits stuck to the pan

add clams to pan

pour in enough, equal parts, chicken broth & white wine (or one or the other) to not quite cover the clams. this will be your sauce for the pasta, so keep in mind how wet or dry you'd like it to be- as long as there's enough liquid for the clams to steam you'll be ok. stir in the saffron threads

cover clams and let them steam in broth

after clams open (discard any who don't) add parsley and lemon juice to broth